We are experiencing a glorious courgette glut at the moment, as you may have guessed! We’ve had courgette frittata, courgette soup and courgettes stuffed with sausage ragu… and courgette crisps, courgette-saka, grilled courgettes, stir-fried courgette… we even tried a chocolate courgette cake but that one’s not for sharing as we didn’t love the recipe we tried. We’ll be having another go, though! We still have plenty of courgettes to enjoy – green baton shapes and yellow globe ones.

Like most people, some evenings we are too tired or short of time to make anything fancy but want to resist the easy temptation of a takeaway or ready-meal.

Using ready-made, ready-rolled puff pastry as the base of a quick and easy tart makes for a tasty dinner, and one that can easily be adapted to seasonal ingredients.

On this occasion, we used fresh mozzarella but you could also use a soft goat’s cheese or a brie or camembert-style cheese. A little blue cheese is a very tasty addition too.

Likewise, you can certainly use different herbs or spices. Za’atar, the Lebanese blend of wild thyme, sumac and sesame seeds, works particularly well with courgettes.

Try not to make your layer of toppings too deep, however, or they won’t cook through in the time it takes for the pastry to puff up and brown.

Puff Pastry Cheese, Courgette & Mint Tart

Servings4people

Ingredients

1sheetready rolled puff pastry(all butter is the tastiest)

250-300gsoft cheeseof your choice, thinly sliced

1mediumcourgette, very thinly sliced

fresh mint(or your choice of herbs or spices)

salt

pepper

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 180°C (fan).

Cut the unrolled sheet of pastry onto 2 or 4 pieces. (We cut ours into two, but each tart was enough for two people).

Very lightly score a border around each piece, about 1.5 – 2 cm in from the edge. Take care not to cut right through the pastry.

Within the border area of each piece of pastry, lay out a layer of soft cheese.

I harvested another huge green globe courgette today but I think I will wait til my long yellow ones are ready before making this. I think they’ll be lovely cut lengthways. As Dom says I love the combo with mint. Sounds delicious.

I often make a puff pastry tart, but have been stuck in a rut of putting heaps of red onion and goats cheese on them. Courgette and mint looks like the loveliest, freshest combination – not sure I’d have the patience to arrange the thin slices quite as beautifully though!